Heald H120 Shaft Manufacture

CHALLENGE

Heald / Gamfior H120, 120,000 RPM, air/oil lubrication, stator drive

Our customer attempted to rebuild this high speed grinding spindle themselves but unfortunately it failed very soon after. After this experience, they decided to cut their losses and send us the spindle for rebuild. When the spindle arrived it had already been partially disassembled.

Our initial inspection revealed that the bearings & spacers were missing and that the field (stator) was not securely mounted in the housing. We also observed that the quill pilot & face were in extremely bad condition, and that the front nut & shaft rotor were damaged as well. Our dimensional inspection showed that the ID of both the front and rear housings were oversized by nearly double ISO. This rear housing deviation also contributed in part to a very loose slide fit for the rear ball cage.

SOLUTION

Our rebuild of this spindle included manufacturing a new shaft & front nut, as well as new front & rear bearing spacers. We also had to grind, chrome plate & finish grind the ID of the front & rear housings and the OD of the ball cage bushing. We then proceeded to rebuild the spindle with all new ceramic bearings, o-rings, gaskets and assembly screws. After final assembly, our break-in, test run and outgoing QC process showed good balance, vibration and thermal values, with outgoing pilot & face runout of 1µ.

I really didn’t expect this; You guys really pulled it off! My many thanks to Sandy, Louis and your outstanding crew for helping us get back into production.

Dan Eaton, Taylor Metalworks

Lou all in all everything is running good. Just had a call from Sandy just the other day, its funny great minds think alike. Its great not to be sending spindles out on a regular basis since you addressed my problems, but I know they will still be coming sooner or later. Never a problem when we get them back , run better than new. Hope everything is ok there. Please tell everyone there that we here appreciate everything that you do to keep us up and running and the quick turnarounds. Have delt with the rest now deal with the best. Have a great week end and up and coming holiday.

Northland Customer

Thank you Debbie just received spindle today and WOW ! what a nice job. Can’t wait to use it.
Thank the Northland team for us for a job well done 

Northland Customer

Both of the spindles that you repaired are on the machines and running great. We don’t have any spares for those grinders. We probably will not be purchasing a spare, as you have been able to turn around the repairs quickly and the price of a spare is cost prohibitive.

Northland Customer

I am writing to thank Northland Tool for going the extra mile and saving my company from expensive machine downtime and expensive repairs. We have always sent our Chiron spindles for repair as a shaft with bearings. None of our previous rebuilders pointed out the bearing fretting or the fact that the housing in the machine was out of tolerance and causing premature failure to the spindles. After Northland fixed the housings the spindles have never sounded as good or run as well! Great job guys!

Northland Customer

The detailed cause of failure reports and the expert technical advice that Northland Tool provides is bar none the best I have ever seen. We struggled to keep two of our large our milling spindles running for longer than 6 to 12 months. Northland Tools evaluation showed that the hydraulic nuts were not holding the assembly together causing premature spindle failure. We discussed this in detail and mutually decided to modify the spindle shaft to prevent this from occurring again. The first spindle we performed this on is still in the machine running like new after 3 years. That’s over three times the life of previous repairs and it’s still going strong. Easily over $40,000.00 of savings so far on that one machine and counting.

Northland Customer

Your people go above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to spindle repair. When we had difficulty with the spindle installation and we were able to talk directly to a spindle technician that helped us troubleshoot the issue it helped us out of a bind. We have sent several spindles to you and have nothing but great things to say.

Northland Customer

Thank you for your attention with my quick turn spindle repair. Your status updates allowed me to plan around machine downtime and I now know that you deliver on your promises. In the past other spindle repair vendors talked a big game and consistently failed to deliver. You not only delivered my spindle before the due date but you kept me informed throughout the entire repair process.

Northland Customer

You performed a miracle with my BIG PLUS spindle. After crashing the spindle severely damaging the taper we found that a replacement spindle was not only cost prohibitive but had a long delivery. Your repair was a fraction of the cost of new and you never would know that the spindle was damaged to the extent it was.

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